Hope for the Daughters
by ardavenport
Summary: Captain Picard returns to the Enterprise after being held captive and tortured by the Cardassians. He and Ensign Ro ponder what the daughters of their acts of cruelty inherit.
1. Chapter 1

**HOPE FOR THE DAUGHTERS**

by ardavenport

**- - - Part 1**

Picard faced the wall.

The mat he lay curled up on was nothing more than a large, hard, padded rectangle. No pillow, no blanket. Bright white, vertical lights, arranged and shaped like false windows, slatted the room's severe bluish shadows. The temperature of the Cardassian cell was a bit higher than the comfort range for an earth human, but Picard still wished for a blanket to cover himself with.

The Cardassians had given him a plain, dark gray, sleeveless tunic and pants to replace the sweaty, shapeless orange shift that Gul Madred had put him in for his interrogations. The rough, gray fabric hung loosely around him. Cardassians were, on the average, larger than humans, and Picard's keepers hadn't bothered to size the clothes they'd dressed him in. The unpadded shoes they'd given him were too big as well.

Picard shifted position. He couldn't get comfortable on the firm, flat bed. He could lay for only a few moments before the strain on his neck, or a stabbing pain in his hip, or cramps in his legs and arms would force him to restlessly turn over. The smooth, plastic covering creaked and rubbed against his arms and legs, and on the bare skin on his head.

_We should have arrived by now._ Picard had no way of knowing how long it would take the Cardassian ship to arrive at it's rendezvous with the _Enterprise_, but it seemed that enough time had passed since Gul Lemec's guards had escorted him to this cell. He could feel a slight vibration under him, a barely perceptible shift of artificial gravity familiar to all space farers.

The door was locked. He was still a prisoner. But this cell at least contained minimal comforts. A source of water. A sanitary facility. A hard, raised bed to lay on. And the Cardassians left him alone.

Picard's fingers touched the fresh scar on his chest under the cloth of his tunic. The chilling thought occurred to him that perhaps the Cardassians weren't really returning him to his ship after all, that this was just an elaborate trick designed to subjugate him. Else, why would they have been so careless as to leave their pain-giving device inside him? He shivered.

_No_, he told himself. Gul Madred's tactics had been brutally effective, but his methods and motives had been predictable. Picard had found it appallingly easy to see through his torturer, to know exactly what to say to make him angry and lose his temper. And he'd paid dearly for it. He doubted that Madred would so suddenly switch from his basic cruelty to such a convoluted plan.

He shifted position again. He was thirsty. He would have to get up.

Slowly, he rose to a sitting position and then slid his legs off the mat to let his feet dangle off the edge. He rubbed the stubble on his cheek with the back of his hand, keeping away from his bruised lip. Every muscle in his body complained and ached. He edged off the mat down to the floor and stood up. His posture was bent like an old man's, as he shuffled through the room's alternating light and shadow. His feet dragged as he walked, the loose, cloth shoes hardly any protection at all from the hard floor. He leaned on the opposite wall for support, the top of his bald head resting against the hard metal. He pressed the button over the spigot there and a thin stream of water came out to fill the cup under it.

His hand closed around the half full cup. He lifted it. The water trembled as he brought it to his lips. His shoulders hurt. His elbows hurt. His fingernails hurt, as if they were loose on the ends of his fingers. He had a queasy unwell feeling, like he had a temperature. Maybe he did.

The water was warm and stale. It brought no relief as it went down. For a few seconds he thought he might vomit it up again, like the one, vile meal that Gul Madred had served him. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. His stomach settled.

When would they arrive?

***o* *o* *o* *o* *o* *o***

Captain Jellico sat forward in the command chair like a general planning his next campaign over the maimed bodies of his own soldiers in the aftermath of a battle. But the Cardassian ship on the main view screen offered him no challenge, no opposition.

"Relay transporter coordinates to the Cardassians, Mr. Worf."

Commander Riker sat back in his chair on the captain's right. The first officer frowned insolently in Jellicoe's direction. He and Counselor Troi had requested to be in the transporter room when the Cardassians returned Captain Picard, but Jellicoe had told him that Doctor Crusher didn't need any help and that the first officer's place was on the bridge while they were facing a potentially hostile ship. They sat on either side of Jellicoe, sentinels who watched the man between them as carefully as the enemy outside the ship. Worf had been given the same answer when the Klingon had made a similar request; Jellico had added a comment about unprofessional sentimentality toward the _Enterprise_'s former captain.

Former captain . . .

Not for long.

***o* *o* *o* *o* *o* *o***

Doctor Crusher faced the transporter platform with her two assistants. They were the only ones in the room, except for Chief O'Brien who stood at the transporter controls.

"Beginning transport," O'Brien announced. His comm badge was linked to the bridge.

The air over one of the transporter pads glowed and shimmered, accompanied by the familiar hum and whine. The glow expanded, took shape and solidified into Jean-Luc Picard.

The glow faded and disappeared from him. The drab clothes he wore hung from him like a prison uniform. Picard looked about cautiously, but the _Enterprise_ transporter room seemed real enough. He inhaled. The surroundings certainly felt right. Doctor Crusher, wearing her blue medical jacket over her uniform and her tall, long-legged body, advanced up to the platform, her tricorder aimed at him. He took a step toward her.

His feet caught on the oversized Cardassian shoes and he tripped. He felt his weight coming down hard on a wrong-turned ankle and his reflexes decided for him to let himself fall forward rather than pressure the ankle. He came down off of the transporter platform into hands that caught him at his waist, his arms, supporting him while he got his legs under him again. His limbs were stiff and uncooperative. He tested the ankle, but he didn't seem to have twisted it badly.

"Damn!" he swore. He kicked the offending shoes away from him. They were so loose that they came off with a single jerk of each leg. O'Brien ducked.

Doctor Crusher stared at him with wide, concerned blue eyes. A moment ago she'd read wondrous relief on his face. Now he was angry, hurt. Her assistants, Ogawa and Torkin, released their hold on the captain when he jerked his arms from them. She released her own hold on his bare arm and palmed her medical scanner. Still annoyed, he turned and glared at the noise she was making. There were no gross injuries, but every muscle and tendon in his body was cramped and stressed far past anything he could have gotten from even the most strenuous exercise.

"What's this?" She held her scanner up to his chest, near his left collar bone.

"A gift from the Cardassians," he told her, humorless.

"I want you in Sickbay, now." He frowned sullenly. He knew he had to go to Sickbay. He just dreaded the trip going there. His limbs were so stiff and sore that he'd had to shuffle from his cell to the transporter on the Cardassian ship. He hadn't minded inconveniencing his guards or Gul Lemec. He had maliciously enjoyed their impatience with his slow pace, until one of the guards had viciously jabbed him in the back. Lemec, with his oily charm had apologized, and lightly rebuked the guard.

Perversely, he felt the same burning indignation now at the prospect of Doctor Crusher and the rest of the crew watching him creep his way through the corridors to Sickbay. The doctor would call for a stretcher long before he would make it there on his own, and that alternative would be even worse.

Crusher saved him from either fate by pointing him back toward the transporter pads.

"Chief, can you beam us directly to Sickbay?" she said over her shoulder as Picard carefully remounted the platform.

"Sure."

After sheparding their patient up onto the platform, Crusher and her assistants took their places. Picard felt a hand on his shoulder and he found Beverly Crusher smiling at him.

"Welcome home, Jean-Luc." He stared back, and then a tiny smile crept onto his lips as he fondly took in every detail of her face, her blue eyes.

The transporter room faded away into the swirling, shimmering non-world of transport, and then into the bright main examination room of Sickbay.

"Come on." Crusher guided him toward the central examination table. He let her and her assistants help him up. They half lifted him to sit on the high biobed and he lay down; one of Crusher's assistants, lifted his stiff legs onto the bed.

Picard lay quietly while the medical staff did their business. Doctor Crusher directed the scans and ordered tests. Nurse Ogawa assisted her, getting requested instruments and monitoring life signs while she healed the raw skin of his wrists and his bruised face with a tissue regenerator.

Picard told them what little he knew about the Cardassian device in his chest. The warm, welcoming smile had disappeared behind the thin lips of his chief medical officer's professional tasks. He was glad for that at least. She would carry out her examination and treatment as efficiently as possible, making the whole procedure at least tolerably impersonal and quick.

"Prepare him for surgery."

He tensed. They would remove the Cardassian device from his chest. The med techs undressed him and then re-covered him, injected him with something to numb his chest and attached monitoring devices to him. They stood over him, their faces cool and neutral, looking down on their captain while they worked on him. Picard stared up at the bright lights above. It was a huge, sectioned, circular fixture.

Five lights . . .

He shut his eyes. He was lying under a sheet and wearing only a loose pair of pajama pants, his upper chest numb.

"Hey."

He looked up. Doctor Crusher leaned over him, blocking out the lights above, her face and red hair appearing dark in the shadow she cast on him.

"We're going to start. It'll only take a few minutes." He nodded. The med techs had set up a draped frame over his neck that they'd mounted a scanner on, but Picard knew that its real purpose was to prevent the patient from peeking at what they were doing to him. As if he might have wanted to look. He closed his eyes again.

He flexed his hands. His shoulders and upper chest were heavy, like a cool inert mass that the living portions of his body happened to be connected to. For days now, his body had been a thing to be manipulated by others. Impatient for it to finally end, he curled his fingers and toes.

Picard felt Crusher's free hand land on his arm, tacitly telling him to stop moving. She'd just made an incision in his chest. Any little fidgeting from him wouldn't affect their operation, but the movement would annoyingly show up on the medical monitors. He kept still. Doctor Crusher asked for some kind of extractor.

He couldn't feel anything of what was being done to him. Eyes closed, he could picture what they must be doing, but he had no sense that anything was happening to him at all. The Cardassian pain device had been just behind his collar bone. He hadn't realized it was even there until Gul Madred had pointed it out, implanted in him while he was under the influence of their interrogation drugs. But when it was activated, he could feel the pain it delivered slicing into his whole skeleton. He supposed that was how it conducted its charge throughout his body, the pain digging out from the insides of his bones like acid eating away his muscles from within. He grit his teeth against recalling too accurately. He felt Crusher's hand on his arm again, a light, gentle touch.

The memory pain was dull and flat, deadened by the local anesthetic and the familiar surroundings and voices. He relaxed. This was real. He could feel it now. He'd felt only a hint of it when he'd first appeared in the transporter room. It had been safer to be cautious about his rescue, just in case.

But now he was sure. His body and heart now believed what his brain had been telling them. He was back on board the _Enterprise_. The sounds and smells and textures around him flowed and melded into a friendly haven.

"Get out of my Sickbay."

The icy tone of Beverly Crusher's voice broke though his doze. He opened his eyes. He was looking up at Nurse Ogawa whose large, dark eyes fearfully looked at something over the left edge of the drape over his neck.

"I . . . see I've . . . come at a bad time." _Jellicoe?_

"Get out of my Sickbay right now or I'll call security and have you removed." There was a pause, and then he heard Jellicoe leave. Picard realized that he'd half heard the first part of the confrontation; he just hadn't been listening. He didn't remember any of the actual words, just the sounds of the voices.

He continued staring up at Ogawa, her round, youthful face still anxious. No one paid any attention to him. He tilted his head forward, looking for an explanation. Doctor Crusher's face was murderous. Torkin stood away from her, nervously waiting for instructions. Picard turned his head. People at other biobeds across the room, medical staff and two patients, looked nervously toward the exit that Jellicoe had presumably left through. Picard heard a long sigh from Crusher.

"Prepare to close."

He turned his heard again and felt Ogawa's hand on his forehead, guiding his head back down on the pillow. Annoyed, he didn't say anything or move until the procedure was finished.

After they had removed the sheet, the draped frame and the rest of the medical monitors, Crusher and Ogawa helped him sit up. They gave him a blue top that matched the loose pajama pants he wore. They assisted him with that as well.

"How do you feel?"

He ran his hand over his head and then he lightly touched the tender spot just above his collar bone. Doctor Crusher had also removed the scar that the Cardassians had carelessly left behind along with the pain-giving device.

"Tired," he admitted. He was weary, his arms and legs sluggish, but not nearly as stiff as he thought he ought to have been, probably due to some of the injections the doctor had given him. He fervently wanted a nice, hot shower and a rest. In his own quarters.

"Come on." She led him, not too quickly, out of the examination room, the other patients and staff members averting their eyes until Picard's back was to them. They went out, down a corridor to a private room.

Crusher sat him down at a table and then brought him a very light meal from the replicator, soup, tea and a soft white roll and butter. Picard didn't really feel like going through the exertion of eating anything. Gul Madred had let him go for days without food or water. And then when his Cardassian torturer had served him a meal of a live hatchling and rations, the agonizing session immediately afterward had forced him to bring it all up again. Eating did not appeal to him at the moment.

He picked up the spoon and tasted the soup. Chicken soup with minced vegetables. He took another spoonful and this time enjoyed the taste, as if its commonness would wash out the slithering, soft squirming memory of the Cardassian delicacy going down his throat. He tried the tea. Earl Grey. And then the roll. He cut it open, smearing butter on it, and took a bite. He put the knife down and, still clutching the roll, he ate some more of the soup.

"Hey, not so fast," Beverly Crusher laid her hand on his arm.

He self-consciously put the remains of the roll down. He was hunched over his food, gobbling it like a greedy beggar. A moment ago he'd felt sick at the though of swallowing a meal. He looked for the napkin, unfolded it, wiped his mouth and put it in his lap.

"Sorry," he muttered guiltily.

"It's all right," she told him in an understanding tone, her sympathy making him grit his teeth. He resumed eating at a more dignified pace, finishing the meal in silence.

"Better?"

He nodded, glancing toward her.

"Yes. Thank-you."

"Good." She leaned toward him, her slender hand touching his arm. "I want you to get some rest now."

He didn't really want to rest, but he knew he was too weary to do anything else. They got up and Doctor Crusher went with him to the room's bed. He sat down and then lay down curling up on his side.

Beverly Crusher looked down at him. It was always best for the medical monitors for patients to lay on their backs. She knew that he knew that. But she did not want to make any demands on him, not after all he'd been through. In a few hours she would have to return to heal the cramps and stiffness that he would still have from the abuse he'd suffered.

She adjusted the scanners over his head and then covered him with the blanket. She leaned close over him.

"Call if you need anything."

"Ummmm," he answered sleepily without opening his eyes. She straightened and turned away. At the door, she lowered the room lights and left.

**- - - End Part 1**


	2. Chapter 2

**HOPE FOR THE DAUGHTERS**

by ardavenport

**- - - Part 2**

"All the Cardassian ships have left the area," Lieutenant Worf was saying when Doctor Crusher entered the meeting, late. The attention of everyone else Lieutenant Commander Data, Commander Riker, Counselor Troi and even Worf went to her as she sat down. Captain Jellicoe glared at her. She ignored him. Worf finished his report of the aftermath of averted battle.

"And now Doctor," Jellicoe addressed her. "Now that you have had sufficient time to complete you report, we're all ready to hear it." He did not acknowledge that she alone on the ship could override his orders and had so recently used that authority. If she had carried out her threat to have him physically removed from Sickbay, Starfleet regulations would have backed her up. Crusher thought she saw a trace of insecurity in Jellicoe's eyes under their bunched eyebrows and straight steel gray hair, combed carefully over the thinning spot on the back of his head.

"Overall, Captain Picard did not suffer any permanent injury. He should be able to return to duty tomorrow." She looked right at Jellicoe, sitting in the high-backed chair at the end of the conference table, Picard's usual seat.

"Thank-you-" Jellicoe began. That was all he cared to hear, but Crusher went on.

"Captain Picard was questioned by the Cardassians under truth drugs. He was given no food or water for nearly three days, and the one meal they seem to have given him, he wasn't able to keep down. He was struck on the face and kicked in the ribs. He was shackled at the wrists and suspended by them for over ten hours. And most of the interrogations were conducted with a pain inducing device that the Cardassians implanted in his chest. And which I removed." This last statement once again recalled the warning the doctor had issued to Jellicoe earlier.

"Thank-you, Doctor." Jellicoe answered formally in the same way he might have spoken to an officer he'd just met. "Commander Riker, if the doctor is agreeable, we'll proceed with the change of command at 1400 tomorrow. You will notify Starfleet and the _Cairo_."

"Yes, sir," Riker answered, his bearded face a mask of professional neutrality. Jellicoe's eyes lingered on him suspiciously. Inwardly Riker promised to quietly celebrate in his quarters that night. Noisy celebrations could come _after_ Jellicoe was gone.

***o* *o* *o* *o* *o* *o***

"Jean-Luc?"

His eyes snapped open. The room was darkened and a shadow loomed over him, shading him from the one light above. Someone was touching him.

His neck cramped when he tried to move his head, the nerves and tendons suddenly tightening with an electric pain that made him gasp and freeze. The shadow over him darkened, descending on him. He stared straight ahead at a shapely and feminine uniformed torso and a blue sleeved arm.

A hypospray touched his neck. Warmth spread throughout his body, dulling the pain and paralyzing stiffness.

"That should ease the pain," Beverly Crusher's voice told him very close to his ear. He could see the ends of her red hair hanging in front of him.

The blanket covering him was stripped away. He shut his eyes. Hands on his shoulders and behind him coaxed him onto his back and helped him straighten his legs. He squinted unhappily up at Crusher and Nurse Ogawa. The doctor sat on the bed next to him.

"It's okay," she reassured him. He grimaced at her, but her smile only deepened. Ogawa handed her a fat cylinder with a squarish head on it and after adjusting the controls on it, she held it to his shoulder.

"This should help," she told him. Cool relief like heated water trickling over his skin replaced the tension in his muscles. He sighed and let his head fall back. Carefully, the physician went over his shoulders, his chest. The cramps vanished as if he'd been immersed in a warm bath. His arms, his twisted tendons, his sore muscles, the pain in them vanished in the wake of the treatment.

"Is that better?" he heard as she relieved the stiffness in the back of his neck, her hand supporting and turning his head.

"Um hm." He nodded slightly without opening his eyes.

"Good." She finished with his neck, her fingers briefly stroking the short, clipped hair behind his ear. She and Ogawa went further down his torso, the soreness in his muscles disappearing in their wake. He tensed when the doctor's beam crossed over his genitals and the sensitive area around them, but the pins-and-needles sensations quickly passed as Crusher moved on down to his legs.

Once again his body was at the mercy of others. He felt just as helpless as he'd been when he lay cringing before Gul Madred's desk, the Cardassian's bright lights glaring down on him. He didn't _want_ to move, to stir and get up and push his captivity and its remnants firmly into the past. Crusher's beam massaged his knees and calves.

Was this what Gul Madred had in mind when he'd offered his false promise of a life of leisure? All he would have had to do was say that he saw five lights over the Cardassian general's desk. Just speak the words.

_No._ Madred had lied. He'd lied about the _Enterprise_ being destroyed. He'd lied about Worf being dead. And he'd lied about Doctor Crusher being captured and waiting her turn to be questioned. _But I believed him._

_Five lights._

Picard kept his eyes closed to the light above him. _He had me._

"Jean-Luc." He looked up. Doctor Crusher leaned over him. She and Ogawa coaxed him over onto his stomach. He wrapped his arms around the pillow and buried his face in it while doctor and nurse treated the soreness in his back. Crusher laid her hand on his back as she worked. He welcomed the warm feeling through the pajama top he wore; a sincere and gentle touch that would not turn on him.

He felt impatience with himself that he needed such reassurance. His ordeal would not be over with until he had put his world in order, and he couldn't do that if he lay languishing in Sickbay. He determined that he would get up and leave as soon as possible. But for the moment, he wasn't going anywhere. He tried to mentally ran through the duties he would need to get to when the doctor was finished with him. He would have to update his logs. Starfleet would want a detailed report of his captivity; they might even send someone to debrief him personally. How long had he been held prisoner? How many days? He would have to ask. He had no sense of how long the Cardassians had put him under their interrogation drugs. And how many 'sessions' had he had with Madred? Five? Six? Ten? What was Madred's daughter's name? J'Oel? J'Or'El? He sorted through the details, but they blurred together. When had the Cardassians given him clothes after he'd been initially stripped and left hanging by his wrists. Had he hung there a whole night, or had it been only a few hours?

The events swam and blended, confusing him. He was concentrating too hard. He relaxed and went back to the beginning. After being captured, the Cardassians had taken him . . .

He heard a noise, felt something. He ignored it.

. . . Did Madred have a wife? He hadn't thought of asking when Madred's daughter had visited her doting father while he'd sat unmoving and injured in plain view of her. She couldn't have been any older than eight, maybe seven. What did he know about Cardassian family structures . . .

Suddenly, hands were on him, under him, turning him over. He started, objecting to the sudden change. But his muscles, his arms and legs were completely relaxed, his movements sluggish and ineffective.

The touching went away. He lay on his back again. He felt something on his chest and his eyes opened half-way.

"Hmmmm?"

Crusher had pulled up the blanket and was smoothing it over him. He glanced around the dimly lit room. Where had Ogawa gone?

"Shhhhhh. Go back to sleep."

"I wasn't asleep," he mumbled.

"Well, I want you to get some sleep now," she told him, laying a hand on his shoulder. He gave her a pained, unhappy look.

"I don't want to sleep," he muttered, turning his head from side to side. "I want this to be over with."

"Hey." She leaned close and touched the skin of his temple, almost a caress, to still his movement. "It's over. You're back and you're going to be all right."

"Noooo," he complained, grimacing. "It isn't over. I'm still here."

"Hey," She touched the side of his face. "I want you to rest."

"What happened between you and Jellicoe?" She stared back, her narrow brows lowering, thrown by the odd change of subject. "He came into Sickbay. What was he doing here?"

Immediately Crusher recalled Jellicoe's appearance during the operation. She did _not_ want to discuss it with Jean-Luc Picard now.

"It was nothing," she told.

"It wasn't nothing," he argued. "You practically had him thrown in the brig." She glowered down at him.

"Well, if he or any other starship captain comes barging into my Sickbay expecting me to fill out a report _before_ caring for my patients . . ." Her threat trailed off. Meekly lying under the blanket, only his head visible, Picard stared back at her with surprised gray-green eyes.

"I'm sorry," she reassured him softly, touching his shoulder. "It's just that . . . Jellicoe hasn't been making himself very popular."

"Hmm. I gathered that," he muttered. "I have to admit," he went on, his eyes half closing. "I don't like him all that much myself."

Beverly Crusher sighed, smiling. She leaned close over him.

"Get some rest."

She lingered at his side for a moment. He averted his eyes, looking down to where she sat, but he stubbornly refused to close his eyes until she left him alone.

Satisfied that he wouldn't get up, she rose, collecting her instruments and went to the door. Dimming the lights at the door, she left.

She went to the main area of Sickbay and put the medical instruments away, methodically checking them and putting them in their places in their drawers. She could have assigned the task to one of her staff. Nurse Mills, on the other end of the room, watched her for a moment, as if she expected to be called over by her superior. But Crusher wanted the busywork for herself. The mundane little task gave her something simple to do, something she didn't have to think too hard about.

When she was done, she went to her office to find more busywork.

Deanna Troi was waiting for her.

"Deanna." Crusher nodded toward the counselor, seated in the chair before her desk. Troi nodded back, her black eyes, and doubtlessly her Betazoid empathy, probing. The doctor went to her desk and sat down.

"How's the captain?"

The doctor sighed. "Better. He should sleep until morning."

"And then?"

Crusher looked up from her hands, folded before her on the desktop. "You tell me."

Troi shrugged. "From your report, it doesn't sound as if he's suffered any permanent injury." Troi had not seen Picard since he'd returned to the ship since Jellicoe had rejected her request to be in the transporter room when Picard returned.

After the Cardassians ships had gone, Jellicoe had called down to Sickbay for Picard's status. He had not been pleased when one of Crusher's assistants had answered, telling him that his CMO would get back to him when she was finished with her patient. Displeased with this apparent flaunting of his authority, and brushing aside his counselor's warning, Jellicoe had gotten up and marched down to Sickbay himself. After he'd gone, a smirking Riker had taken the command chair and Troi sensed a deep satisfaction from Lieutenant Worf above at tactical. They'd all known what would happen.

Minutes later, a seething Jellicoe had returned and had immediately gone to the captain's ready room. Riker hadn't even had time to get up out of his seat. Less than an hour later the gory details of the story of the Crusher/Jellicoe confrontation had been all over the ship.

"How does he seem to you?" Troi asked.

"Fine actually. Especially considering what's happened. If fact, I think he was annoyed that I was making him get some rest." Anger flared in the woman across from the Betazed like a cold chill in her stomach.

"You're angry at him?"

"No," Crusher denied.

"Perhaps yourself them. Because he was captured by the Cardassians, and you escaped?"

"No." Her anger fluctuated as if it didn't know if it should be directed at Picard or herself or some other target. "That's not it. There wasn't any choice. He wouldn't have forgiven me or Worf if we'd been captured, too. It's not him I'm angry at." She laid her arms on the desk before her. "It was the whole mission they sent us on." She scoffed. "It was pointless; it was total waste of time. It was all a trap the Cardassians set up from start to finish. And we walked right into it."

"You couldn't have known it was a trap when you went."

"No. But somebody at Starfleet should have! Who knows? Maybe they did know it was a trap. They just wanted us to walk right into it like tin soldiers."

Troi shook her head. "I doubt Starfleet would have deliberately sent you into a trap."

"I suppose not," Crusher acknowledged. "But for this whole mission it seems like everyone on this ship has been treated like tools. We're just supposed to do what we're told. And if Jellicoe and Starfleet want to write off Jean-Luc to the Cardassians for some diplomatic game they're playing, we're supposed to salute and march on."

"Captain Jellicoe did get the Captain back from the Cardassians."

"Yes. _After_ he was finished with the mission."

"He was only doing his duty. I'm sure Captain Picard would have done exactly the same thing if their positions had been reversed. Or even if it had been Will or you or me who'd been captured."

Crusher stared down at the work area of her desk. Her eyes looked in the direction of the private room where she'd left Jean-Luc Picard to rest, her anger unsatisfied.

"I'm sure he would have."

***o* *o* *o* *o* *o* *o***

Captain Edward Jellicoe placed the last of his young son's drawings into the box on the desk. The room was bare except the plant in the corner. Maintenance would be putting the fish back in after he left. He'd already made the arrangements.

Things just hadn't worked out. Jellicoe scanned the spacious ready room. He would be glad to return to the _Cairo_, his own ship. Hard as he'd tried, he had never been able to establish a solid working relationship with the _Enterprise_ crew. The problems had started almost immediately, even before Picard had left, with Will Riker. After that they'd escalated faster than Jellicoe would have thought possible. Frictions had appeared, subtly reducing the efficiency of an otherwise first-rate starship crew.

It had been his mistake, Jellicoe solemnly decided as he stared out at the passing stars through the ready room's viewport. Picard habitually assigned the bulk of the _Enterprise's_ administrative duties to Riker. He should have realized immediately what would happen when he took over. The problems between him and the commander could have been predicted. And the doctor . . .

Jellicoe grimaced. He read her report; she'd finally deigned to log one. Crusher had been quite thorough. She'd detailed every single injury inflicted upon Picard. The Cardassians had been unusually sloppy about covering up their misdeeds this time, but Jellicoe wasn't too surprised. Their overconfidence was one of their weaknesses. It had already forced them to withdraw from several systems in the sector and it had set them back at Minos Korva as well.

Doctor Crusher had been very thorough in her description of their confrontation in Sickbay as well. She'd looked up and referenced all the Starfleet regulations pertaining to the bounds of her authority in her Sickbay and where it took precedence over the captain's. This would insure that her report would be forwarded all the way to the upper levels of Starfleet Medical and then back down the chain to his CMO on the _Cairo_. Crusher had headed Starfleet Medical for a year, so she would know exactly where to send it. Jellicoe did not look forward to Dr. Cathesi's reaction when he read it, and the smug smile the man would be wearing. Cathesi was a superb CMO, but hard-headed when it came to getting his way; he wouldn't have needed to look up the pertinent regulations to compose a report like Crusher's. He knew them by heart.

He had misjudged things from the beginning. He'd been surprised by how much authority Captain Picard ceded over to Riker. Jellicoe would never have expected it in an officer of Picard's caliber. But having discovered that, he hadn't modified his plans and he should have. Jellicoe knew now he should have come down hard on Riker from the very beginning so that the man would have known what to expect. He'd given Riker too much leeway, too much freedom in the beginning, so when he'd started to make serious demands on him, Riker had balked.

Jellicoe straightened and picked up his box. It was too late now. Bad water under the bridge. Jellicoe turned and left the ready room empty.

**- - - End Part 2**


	3. Chapter 3

**HOPE FOR THE DAUGHTERS**

by ardavenport

**- - - Part 3**

"You don't have to say anything you don't want to," Lieutenant Wasek cajoled. "Don't give me any confidential medical information. None of that. I just want to know for sure. Are we getting rid of Captain Bligh, or not?"

Ogawa squirmed in her seat. Wasek, Ensigns Th'to and Ro watched her, the center of attention at their table, and probably at all the tables around them in Ten Forward, too.

"Well," she admitted. "Doctor Crusher did ask Doctor Selar to write up a new duty schedule for everyone in Sickbay, switching us back to the gamma shift."

"Yes!" Wasek cheered and sat back in his seat. Ensign Ro bowed her head, disgusted with him. The Bajoran didn't really like him that much anyway. Wasek was a byooch, a dweeb, as a Terran might say. So, was Th'to. Both of them had been bothering her for days about what she thought the Cardassians were up to in that sector and what she thought about their withdrawal from Bajor and how it might be connected to their mission at Minos Korva. As if she cared to talk about it.

But they'd come off the same shift down in Engineering and when Th'to had mentioned that he was meeting Ogawa in Ten Forward, Ro and Wasek had followed.

_Like scavengers_, Ro thought.

But she wanted to hear something about Picard. That urge had prodded her into a gathering with a couple of people that she didn't care much for. Was it concern? Duty? Morbid curiosity? Picard was the hottest topic of gossip on the ship.

Alissa Ogawa was squirming in her seat, clearly regretting her trip to Ten Forward. _Serves her right for dating a jerk like Th'to._ Wasek was unsubtly trying to get more information from her about Picard's condition. It was well known that any member of the medical staff caught gossiping about any patient's medical status could expect a quick reprimand or even a transfer if Doctor Crusher ever heard about it.

The immediate news, promulgated by Chief O'Brien, had been that the captain was relatively unharmed and would be returning to duty soon. Then the word that Picard was spending the night in Sickbay had fuelled the rumor mill about how bad his injuries really were.

Picard couldn't return to duty soon enough to suit Ro. _And I thought Riker was bad._ For the past several days the _Enterprise_ crew had been groaning under the weight of Jellicoe's strict interpretation of Starfleet regimen. Drills, shift changes, efficiency tests. Ro had actually been glad that her current duty assignment was down in Engineering, so she wouldn't have to take Jellicoe's orders directly on the bridge. He actually had Data announcing, 'Captain on the Bridge,' whenever he appeared there. She hadn't heard that kind of corfech droppings since she was at the Academy, and even then it was just for show.

Jellicoe had been appointed to deal with the Cardassians while Picard was sent on some secret mission that-even though no official announcement had, and would probably never would be made about it-had obviously failed badly. Jellicoe was supposed to be some kind of expert on negotiating with Cardassians. The only way Ro could see that this could possibly be considered true was in that Jellicoe _acted_ more like a Cardassian than any other human she'd ever come across.

The final shock had been when Jellicoe had relieved Commander Riker for insubordination. Insubordination! That still astonished Ro; Riker was so regulation that he probably slept in his uniform. But Jellicoe had pushed even Riker over the edge somehow. Ro knew at least a dozen people who had their transfer requests ready if Jellicoe's assignment to command the _Enterprise_ became permanent.

Ro finished her drink.

"I'm going to call it a night." She'd heard all she needed to know. If Crusher was deleting Jellicoe's delta shift and going back to gamma then that was a good enough indication for her that Jellicoe's reign was ending.

"I'm a little tired myself," Ogawa announced, quickly getting to her feet. She hadn't even touched the pie and drink she'd ordered. "I'll go with you." Her 'date' objected but Ogawa clumsily brushed him off. Ro thought about telling him to drop dead, but she didn't bother. Th'to was Ogawa's problem.

They left together and walked down the corridor to the lift. They passed Chief O'Brien and Keiko O'Brien in the corridor. They'd been heading toward Ten Forward, but when Chief O'Brien saw them he raised a hand as if to say something. His small wife siezed his meaty arm and dragged him along and they passed on their way without speaking. Ro pretended she didn't see as they walked on. O'Brien had served in the last Federation/Cardassian conflicts and would probably be hot for rumors about Picard. He could get them from Wasek and Th'to in Ten Forward.

Nurse Ogawa was Crusher's personal assistant. Crusher would have treated Picard, and Ogawa would have been there. Ro caught herself glancing at the slight woman. Ogawa had been late getting off her shift. Had Picard's injuries been very severe? Someone in Engineering had said that O'Brien had claimed that Picard hadn't had any visible scars or injuries when he'd arrived. But Ro knew from personal experience that Cardassians didn't always leave scars.

Ro grit her teeth against the memory of the Cardassians that had occasionally plagued her refugee childhood, and of her father, on his knees, face bruised, his ear bleeding where they'd ripped off his Bajoran earring, begging a huge Cardassian in a hard-shelled uniform like body-armor, to stop while his seven year-old daughter was forced to watch.

Ro couldn't picture Picard doing that. She touched the chain of the single earring she wore clipped to two places on her left ear.

They reached the lift. Ogawa asked for Deck Eight, Ro for Deck Twelve. The Bajoran stared forward at the closed door, as if keeping her eyes fixed forward would reduce the temptation to try starting a conversation with Ogawa and hope that she would mention some pertinent detail about Picard that the Bajoran craved to hear. The picture of Wasek trying the same thing in Ten Forward kept her silent.

The lift stopped and let Ogawa out and then proceeded downward.

_What am I supposed to be afraid of? Would it make any difference if Picard did beg for his life? Ogawa wouldn't know that anyway._

The lift stopped and Ro left, heading for her quarters. _She'd know what they used on him. She __might know how bad it was._

Ro entered her windowless cabin. She didn't turn up the lights. She went directly to her bedroom by the dim glow in the corners of the room and lay down, not even bothering to take her boots off.

She stared up at the ceiling. Her father cringed and screamed in her mind, transformed from the brave, father she'd grown up to love. Crawling on the floor, he'd even offered the Cardassians his daughter to them, to do with as they pleased if they'd only stop torturing him.

She remembered the words, the screams, her imagination distorting the sounds, mixing recent memories with the old ones burned into her from the past. They sounded like Picard.

***o* *o* *o* *o* *o* *o***

Captain Picard, barefoot and still wearing his blue Sickbay pajamas, sat at a small table, a screen of glowing yellow text before him. He'd recorded the basic details of his failed mission and capture from memory, now he was just filling in the details.

He had woken up very early that morning. A nurse, who must have been called by the Sickbay computer when he awoke, had come in almost immediately. He'd accepted the small breakfast offered him more to get rid of Nurse Kajis than out of any real hunger. The half eaten remains sat next to him on the table while he updated his logs with the appropriated medical computer terminal.

He checked the time. 06:47. Where the hell was Doctor Crusher? He felt largely recovered and ready to be released, but Crusher had to do it. He shuffled a few more paragraphs around, but he realized he wasn't making any significant contributions. He saved the work and retrieved the ship's logs. The computer denied him access to several important ones, including Jellicoe's because it didn't recognize him as a commanding officer. Annoyed, he read the ones he could get to. The Cardassians had completely lost their bid to take the colony at Minos Korva; the incident would hurt them diplomatically in the whole region. Several of their recent strategic withdrawals would become permanent. Unallied systems on the border would now side with the Federation. The Cardassian Union had lodged a formal protest against the Federation establishing a Starfleet outpost in the Bajoran system. But after this incident of open aggression from Cardassia, Picard was sure now that the Federation Council would quickly accept the Bajoran government's invitation. He checked the time again.

07:08.

Where the hell was Doctor Crusher?

***o* *o* *o* *o* *o* *o***

Ensign Ro sat in front of a small table in Sickbay while Doctor Crusher ran an epidermal restorer over the hangnail on the fourth finger of her left hand.

"You know it's interesting," the red-haired physician noted as she worked on the ensign's hand lying on the small table between them. "We always seem to get a lot of cases like these at times like this."

"Uh, I don't know what you mean," Ro responded, confused by Crusher's reference.

"Well, the last time I saw this many bruises, sprains and hangnails, I think that was when Commander Riker was injured on a first contact mission." There were six other very healthy looking _Enterprise_ crew members being treated along with Ro in Sickbay.

Ro felt suddenly eager to start her shift down in Engineering. "I guess these things come in waves."

"I guess so." The doctor finished her work. "There," she pronounced cheerfully. "You're ready for duty, Ensign."

Ro was staring fearfully past Crusher, and for a moment the doctor thought there was something more wrong with her than a common hangnail. Then Crusher looked behind her. Picard was standing there.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded, getting up.

"I was hoping you could tell me that. What _am_ I still doing here?" he demanded.

Ro lowered her eyes while the doctor, frowning with obvious disapproval at her patient's bare feet unbruised and fairly ordinary under the cuffs of his blue pajamas, dealt with the captain. Ro blushed, as if she'd walked in on the captain as he was stepping out of a shower. _What the hell am I doing here?_ Her casual, morning trip to Sickbay now seemed like a pathetic attempt to put herself in a position to listen in on stray information about Picard's status.

Ensign Ro hesitantly looked up, realizing that Picard and Crusher had stopped arguing. He was looking down at her; right at her. She quickly averted her eyes. Being scrutinized by Captain Picard's hawkish gaze was always a humbling experience that could wilt even the most regulation junior officer. But Ro now felt as if she was being examined on a personal level, that Picard could see through her morbid curiosity about him.

Exasperated, Crusher hustled her patient out. In Picard's wake, Ro saw two technicians from Engineering with fictitious muscle sprains give each other the thumbs up signal as if they'd just won a bet. Ro got up and left as quickly as she could.

***o* *o* *o* *o* *o* *o***

"Ro?"

Ensign Ro looked up from the sensor diagnostic that she'd been staring at for the past few minutes. Lieutenant Commander LaForge was standing over her. With the rumbling pulse of engine warp chamber less than seven meters away from her station, she hadn't ever heard him approach. His eyebrows bunched together with concern over the metal VISOR that covered his sightless eyes.

"Are you all right?"

"Yeah." Ro rubbed her neck and nodded nervously, not liking that he'd caught her off guard. "I'll be finished with this in a minute." She reached for the controls under the display above her, but LaForge stopped her.

"Hey, that can wait." He perched on the edge of the control station next to her. "Y'Know you've been kind of distracted lately."

LaForge saw Ro's features harden, her brows lowering, accenting the delicate ridges between her eyes. She looked like she would tell him to mind his own business and he half expected it. But he hoped she wouldn't.

"I'm just a little preoccupied lately," she admitted without looking back at him. _Am I being that obvious? If LaForge can tell I'm this preoccupied about the captain then the whole ship must know._ She shuddered. Then Picard would find out.

LaForge stayed there leaning on the console, an obvious invitation to her to confess. She wondered how much she ought to admit to. LaForge was a safe enough person. He didn't have any angles; he didn't play mind games with people. She thought about the time they'd both been caught in phase space together after a failed Romulan warp experiment. Invisible to their own world, everyone else on the ship had thought they were dead, including her. While she was reexamining her disdain for Bajoran mysticism LaForge had been the one who'd figured out how to get them back into real space. And without her even asking him to, he hadn't repeated any of her reflections to anyone else. She was sure that anything she said to him now would be just as private.

"Anything you want to talk about?" he asked.

He saw her glance around, as if gauging the potential for eavesdroppers amidst the engineers and technicians in the area, but no one was near enough to hear a subdued conversation over the thrumming of the warp chamber.

"I don't know. I guess it's just this last mission that's been bothering me." She still didn't look back at him as she spoke and ran her hand under the back of her short, straight hair. The chain of the Bajoran earring she wore clipped to her left ear swayed when she moved her head.

"Would you like some time off?" She did look up at him now.

"I don't look that bad, do I?"

"I mean to go back to Bajor."

Confused by the sudden change of subject, Ro stared back at him.

"What?"

"Well, now that the Cardassians have left Bajor, I thought you might like to go see how things are doing there."

"Oh." Ro was momentarily speechless by LaForge's total lack of understanding of what was bothering her. It was true that the Cardassians, who had occupied her homeworld for more than 60 years, raped and pillaged the planet and population, were finally withdrawing. Although she was curious about how her people fared, Ro Laren was not overly sentimental about her refugee upbringing. Nor did she think much of the strutting revolutionaries who were now in charge on Bajor. In her opinion, their squalid ranks of terrorists had been far less important to the Cardassian military machine than the political games Cardassia was playing with the Federation and the other large powers in that sector, like their failed gambit at Minos Korva.

Ro silently cursed whoever in Communications had let out the word into the ship's grapevine that she'd gotten three messages from cousins and some friends on Bajor in the past few days. She hadn't even looked at the messages yet, but it was obvious from the hints she was getting from people around her that they knew she'd gotten them. It looked now like Geordi LaForge was just the latest person to try pumping her for inside information about Bajor.

"Um, I don't think so right now," she told LaForge, her inspiration to discuss her father's death with him draining away.

**- - - End Part 3**


	4. Chapter 4

**HOPE FOR THE DAUGHTERS**

by ardavenport

**- - - Part 4**

Picard stared up at the rod he grasped, into the dark, bluish shadows above, the floor hard and cold under his head and back. He heard Troi over by the Gul's desk move, a tiny, whispering sound of fabric. But she didn't say anything; no comment, no verbal evaluation of his sudden choice to act out his memory.

Her silence disappointed him. He took some small satisfaction out of being able to surprise the counselor during those times when he must endure her therapy. He knew that these session was for his benefit, but he'd never gotten used to admitting that he needed them when he did. And being able to surprise Counselor Troi at least gave him the illusion that he was in control.

He fingered the ridged rod rising up from the floor next to him. The holodeck reproduction was frighteningly good. He'd spent more than an hour working on it with Troi watching with her dark, perceptive eyes, and occasionally offering suggestions.

The Betazoid remained silent and Picard wondered how long he could drag out this part of the session as he stared up into the shadows at the high, peaked ceiling. It was really a very good simulation. He remembered Madred's boot on his chest, rousing him from the stupor he'd fallen into after a prolonged questioning. It surprised him now that he'd so willingly escaped into the happy unreality of his childhood at that point; the pain had been so intense. He hummed a couple notes of a song before he caught himself, remembering the counselor in the room with him. Then he reconsidered. He had to give her something, didn't he?

"I don't know that song," Troi commented, still waiting by the desk.

"Hmm. I used to sing it with my family when I was a boy. Sunday dinner."

"You thought of that while you were being questioned?" He heard her stir, moving toward him.

"Hmm." He released his hold on the rod and sat up. He was tired of lying on the floor. "Yes."

"You think that's significant?" She crouched down to his level, half of her in darkness, half of her in the glow from the vertical wall lights, her long, thick, curly dark hair black in the shadow, tinted brown in the light.

"I've never been prone to daydreaming or fantasizing, but I-I just couldn't stand it." He sat with his arms resting on his knees. Troi repositioned herself, sitting down next to him. "I never thought the human body could endure such pain, like having every muscle shredded. It was like being eaten alive, but it wouldn't stop. It would get so I just couldn't feel any more. I couldn't think or do anything but try to remember what it was like _not_ to feel pain." He rubbed his eyes. "I suppose Madred had to stop then, he couldn't possibly have gotten anything out of me after it had gone that far." He looked at Troi. "But you know, I can't remember him turning that device off. I'd just finally notice it wasn't on."

He turned away, looking straight in front of him as if he were staring at the memory itself. "And then I could see myself sitting at dinner, singing with my parents, my brother, my aunt and grandparents. I didn't stop to think if it was real or possible. I was just there." He lowered his head. "And then I wasn't. And he was standing over me, wondering why I hadn't broken."

"Had you?" Troi prompted gently.

"Not then. I couldn't see how I could. I didn't have the information he wanted." Picard sighed and got up off the hard floor and walked over to the huge desk at one end of the room, its high-backed chair like a throne with four bright lights hung above on the wall behind it. Troi followed him. Her questions followed him. How did he feel now about what had been done to him? Was he angry about it? Fearful? What would he do if he ever met Gul Madred again?

Picard answered as well as he could, but as he spoke he felt increasingly wrung out on the whole subject. Having told Troi everything he could think of about it, he was beginning to think he was repeating himself. He'd returned to the _Enterprise_ over a week ago and he'd been having daily sessions with the counselor since then. Usually their talks would last just a half-hour, but today they had gone to the holodeck for a more elaborate exercise and he wondered if this didn't signal some kind of conclusion to the therapy. He sat down at the desk. Troi took the empty chair opposite him; the same type of hard, plastic chair that he'd sat in during his interrogations with Madred.

"I kept baiting him," he told the Betazoid. "Doing things I knew would make him angry. It was so easy. He was so arrogant, so transparent. He'd make such a pretense of being so civilized, but there wasn't anything civilized about anything he did."

"You said he was particularly sensitive about his childhood." Troi leaned forward, putting her elbows on the smooth desktop.

"Oh, yes," he agreed. "He couldn't stand hearing me tell him that he was just reliving the injuries that were done to him when he was young by torturing me."

"You think that was true?"

"Yes," the captain snapped back. Troi noted the tension in him as he gathered his thoughts. He sat forward in the Gul's chair, his shoulders tense, his hands in his lap as if he were sitting in the interrogation chair. "He made such a show of being such a loving father and how his daughter wouldn't have to go through the same kind of childhood he had. And all he was doing was substituting the personal violence he's suffered with the violence he was inflicting on me.

"I was just sitting there." The pitch of his voice rose with the incredulity of the memory. "And she walked right past me. How anyone can let his child see something like that and still consider himself 'civilized' . . . "

"The Cardassian family structure is different from ours-"

"It isn't just that, Counselor," Picard interrupted Troi's beginning speech about the tolerance of the variations between cultures. "If the Cardassians were teaching things like that amongst themselves I wouldn't have any more say about it than how Klingons raise their children. But Gul Madred was teaching his daughter to de-value other species specifically because they weren't Cardassian. And he was using _me_ as an example." He pointed to himself for emphasis. "He was perpetuating the violence that had been done to him when he was a child by passing it on to her."

"And that makes you angry."

"Sickened more like." He hunched forward, the bright lights behind his chair casting a shadow on the desk before him. "I didn't care what happened to me, but to see that kind of twisted logic perpetuated in her . . . someday she would be the torturer and she would pass it on to her children . . . and her victims," he finished quietly. Troi sensed his anger melt into regret, a blanket of sadness closing in around him.

"Are you're afraid that you might unconsciously act on what the Cardassians did to you?"

"No," he answered quickly, with real surprise at her suggestion of the possibility. "At least, I hope not," he amended. "No it isn't that . . . it's just . . . when Madred's daughter came in I thought of . . . "

"What?"

"Did you know that Ensign Ro's father was killed by Cardassians?"

Troi knew. As ship's counselor, she was particularly aware of Ro's background. The Bajoran had needed counselling for her violent and impoverished childhood at Starfleet Academy. What surprised Troi was that Picard knew about it.

"She told you?"

"Yes, when she first came on board. The Cardassians actually made her watch him die. And there was Madred bringing his own daughter in to see me. She couldn't have been much older than Ro when her father was killed. The Cardassians start their children very early. It almost guarantees that the violence won't end. Even when the torture stops, there will always be someone else to start it up again. If not their own children, then the children of one of their enemies."

After she'd left them, Picard had envisioned taking Madred's daughter to the _Enterprise_ and showing her that what her father was teaching her was lies, that there wasn't anything evil or sinister about how other species raised their children. She would play with the other children in the ship's classroom; Picard imaged that she might get along well with Lieutenant Worf's son, Alexander. They were of a similar age. Madred would be so angry. Madred wouldn't be able to touch him on the _Enterprise_ and the Cardassian wouldn't be able to take back the things his daughter learned, because once she learned that he'd lied once, she would always question what her father taught her.

"I don't care about what's already happened. But to see that it's going to happen again . . . "

"Perhaps you should see if it will."

He looked up at Troi, puzzled by her remark.

"What?"

"Perhaps you should talk to Ensign Ro about what happened to you, and that you thought about her during the experience. I don't think Ro suffers from her childhood the same way Gul Madred does. It might be helpful for you to see that."

He looked back at the dark-haired Betazoid, uncomfortable at the thought of acting out her proposal.

"I don't think that's entirely necessary, Counselor." He swallowed. "And I really wouldn't know what to say." He was more familiar with Ro than most other junior ensigns on the ship. The covert mission that had initially brought Ro Laren under his command had made him look into her tarnished Starfleet record. Her willful attitude her landed her a prison term; time to think over the deaths of her crew mates that she'd caused with a rash decision. She had been reprieved only because she was a Bajoran, and could help them track down a group of Bajoran terrorists. But when the mission had been completed successfully, Picard had felt that there was a great deal that could be salvaged from her ruined career and he'd made her assignment to the _Enterprise_ permanent.

But talking with Ro Laren about his personal feelings was another matter.

Troi smiled, sensing his dread.

"Think about it," she told him, letting him off the hook. "But I think you would benefit from talking with someone else about this. Besides me." Talking with other people about how he felt was a standard prescription for her to him. When she'd first met him, over six years ago, he'd been as tight as a rock clam with his own thoughts. He was vastly improved about it now, but it still didn't come easily to him. His first impulse would always be to keep everything inside himself.

Troi got up.

"You can tell me how you feel about it next week," she told him cheerfully in the cold white light, the sinister shadows of the chamber behind her.

Picard looked up. Her words not only ended the session, they marked an end to the daily therapy, a good sign that his encounter with the Cardassians was now behind him. His lips formed a small smile.

"Yes, Counselor, next week would be fine."

***o* *o* *o* *o* *o* *o***

"Counselor Troi!"

Deanna Troi turned and found Lieutenant Commander Geordi LaForge coming down the corridor toward her. Not surprising, since she was on Deck 36, near Main Engineering.

"Can I help you with something, Counselor?"

"No. I was just down here reminding Zhurah Feck about an appointment we had." She named a visiting environmental systems specialist who was collecting data for a new atmosphere replication system for Starfleet.

"Oh." Troi felt the momentary prick of curiosity that she always sensed whenever anyone heard that someone else was seeing the ship's counselor. It died away, but LaForge's attention stayed focused on her.

"Can I help you, Commander?"

"Well, not me but . . . " They moved to the side of the corridor when two technicians passed by. "I've been noticing that Ensign Ro has been kind of . . . distracted lately."

"Oh." At once she thought of her last session with the captain the day before. "Is there anything in particular that you think is bothering her."

"Well, it started after this last mission at Minos Korva. And given how Ro feels about Cardassians and with the Cardassians leaving Bajor I thought maybe that was it."

"Did you ask her about it?"

"Yeah. I even asked her if she wanted some time off to go back to Bajor, but she didn't seem interested."

"And you'd like me to ask her about it," Troi concluded.

"Well, I don't think it's anything serious," LaForge amended quickly. "But she wouldn't talk about it and, well, you know Ro. She's pretty tough. If something's bothering her enough for it to show like that, it must at least be something important. And . . . " he paused. "Well, I think a few other people might have been asking her about it. She might be a little touchy about the subject." Neither of them voiced the sentiment that Ro Laren tended to be generally touchy about a lot things.

"I see." Troi nodded. She got at least a dozen half-hearted referrals every month by well-meaning friends. Often it was the referrer and not the referee who needed to talk to her. But this time . . .

"I'll talk to her later today."

***o* *o* *o* *o* *o* *o***

Beverly Crusher finished the rest of her dinner. Jean-Luc Picard sat morose in his seat across from her, the star field through one of the viewports of his cabin framing his smooth head, his unfinished meal cold in front of him.

"You're being awfully thoughtful tonight." No answer. "Jean-Luc."

He looked up at her.

"What?"

"You look like you have a lot on your mind. You haven't said much tonight."

"I'm sorry," he apologized. "I'm not very good company tonight."

"Anything you want to talk about?"

Picard smiled. "That's what Counselor Troi suggested."

"I don't understand." He read puzzlement in her blue eyes, her red hair falling down over her shoulders, almost covering up the comm badge of her uniform.

"Well, Counselor Troi suggested that I discuss my experience with the Cardassians with someone else besides her." Picard laid his napkin down beside his plate.

"Oh." Crusher wasn't surprised by Troi's recommendation. The Betazoid had mentioned it to her the day before. Being the ship's CMO, Troi had already told her that she'd discontinued her daily sessions with the captain and they'd both logged their professional assessment for Starfleet that he was fit for duty. What surprised the doctor was that Jean-Luc Picard looked like he might be taking the advice.

"Well, I um . . . guess I haven't said much about it." Picard looked down at the table centerpiece, white and yellow daises and green leaves. "I'm not very good at talking about things like this."

"Troi has mentioned it."

"She has?" He quickly looked up at her.

"Well, only professionally."

"Oh," he chided himself for thinking that they were gossiping about him. "I'm not sure what good re-hashing it all is supposed to do for me," he complained.

"It helps sometimes to tell someone what's troubling you."

"Who said it was troubling me?" he demanded.

"Fine." She raised her hands in surrender. "You don't have to say anything if you don't want to." The expression on his face was petulant. _Well, don't look for any sympathy from me, Jean-Luc. Am I supposed to cheer every time you decide to let me know what's on your mind?_

"Fine." He pushed his chair back from the table. He picked up his plate and glass and silverware and took it to the replicator. She followed him with her own plate and the bowl of unfinished bean salad.

"Beverly." She touched the wall padd and the dishes and dinner debris in the replicator slot vanished. She felt his hand on her shoulder. "I didn't mean to argue." _Who's arguing with you?_

She took his hand between hers and looked into his eyes. "You don't have to say anything, Jean-Luc, that you don't want to." His fingers closed around hers, his large, warm hands dwarfing her smaller, slender ones. He thought of her welcome to him, when he'd been returned to the ship by the Cardassians, and see for himself that she hadn't been captured after all.

"I think that it might be a case of what I need to say." He nodded toward the table and they both sat down again to talk.

**- - - End Part 4**


	5. Chapter 5

**HOPE FOR THE DAUGHTERS**

by ardavenport

**- - - Part 5**

"Everyone thinks I've got this big grudge against Cardassians," Ensign Ro complained over her dessert.

Guinan, on the other side of the table they sat at, shrugged. "I can't imagine you're very fond of them."

"No. But I don't dwell on it. It doesn't consume my life." She waved her fork around before stabbing the piece of cake in front of her.

"Well, you're dwelling on something. At least that's why you're here." Guinan nodded toward the rest of Ten Forward from their table by the view port. It was very late and only a few other patrons lingered around the bar.

Ro eyed Guinan as she chewed.

"Are you sure you're not telepathic?"

Guinan shrugged again. "It doesn't take any telepathy to notice how you've been moping around the past week."

"I've just got a lot on my mind, okay?" She started picked her cake apart, separating out the gooey filling.

"Well, it shows. And people start thinking that maybe you're just dropping hints that you want to talk about it."

"Not you, too." Ro gave her a pained expression. "Geordi sicked Counselor Troi on me today."

"Well, they care. That's what friends are for."

"Yeah." Ro wiped the crumb-laden filling from her fork on the edge of her plate and took another bite.

"I was sort of wondering . . . how well do you know Captain Picard." She continued dismembering her cake as she spoke.

"Ahhhhh, you're worried about Captain Picard."

"No I'm not," Ro denied, hastily looking up.

"Well, you were hanging around here with Nurse Ogawa the night the Cardassians brought him back. And I've never seen you do that before. I didn't think you liked Th'to and Wasek. One might think you were hoping to hear Ogawa say something about how the Captain was doing."

"I was not." The lie came to her lips without her even thinking about it; her denial falling flat against Guinan's smile.

"Well, then you were the only person in the room who wasn't." Ro picked up her juice. Sipping it, she tried to think of a response to Guinan's statement of what was now, clearly obvious.

"You look up to him, don't you?" Guinan prompted.

"Yes," she admitted as if she'd just been caught in the act of caring. "I'd still be in the stockade if it weren't for him. And you," she acknowledged her companion's intervention on her first mission on the _Enterprise_ when it had looked like Picard would send her back to prison. Guinan had been the only person who she'd been able to initially talk to about the scheme that Admiral Kennelly had intended for her to follow. Kennelly had been yet another person who'd thought she held a grudge against Cardassians big enough for her to willingly hand over weapons to Bajoran terrorists for him. Guinan had been the person to get her to tell Picard about it, and to get Picard to listen to her. After she'd been confined to quarters, Guinan had visited her, and then escorted her to the bridge to Picard's ready room. The minute Riker and Worf saw her they'd looked like they were going to pounce. But when they saw Guinan with her they'd magically stepped aside, her presence protecting the errant ensign from the wrath of her senior officers. Picard had listened to her side of the story based solely on Guinan's statement, 'She's a friend.'

"There's nothing wrong with being worried about him. I hear the Cardassians weren't particularly gentle," Guinan told her.

"Did he . . . say anything to you about it?" she asked, trying not to look too interested. Her cake was a mass of sticky, dark brown crumbs and pink filling. She started mashing the heap together to get some of it onto her fork.

"No." Ro saw Guinan read the disappointment on her face before she looked back down at her cake again. "But he doesn't always talk to me about everything," Ro heard Guinan say.

"I thought you and he were supposed to be close."

"We are. But we don't have to talk about everything." Guinan paused. "And you don't have to be close to someone to talk about something with them."

"Guinan?"

Ro jumped.

Captain Picard was standing at their table and looking down at them. Ro hadn't even heard him approach.

"Captain!" Guinan got up and acted surprised at his arrival. "Have a seat," she invited. Picard remained standing. "Let me get you something." Guinan left.

Picard stood there, his gaze following Guinan, a puzzled look on his face. Ro returned her attention to her heap of cake and juice when he looked at her. Guinan returned with a fresh piece of cake and a full glass of juice.

"There." Guinan laid the fork on the napkin next to the plate and again invited Picard to sit down. He frowned back at her.

"Have you been talking to Counselor Troi?" he asked.

"Talk to her all the time." Guinan left.

After a pause he sat down. Ro saw his large hands pick up the napkin and lay it in his lap.

Picard held his fork over the square confection Guinan had laid out for him. He had no idea what kind of cake it was. It was the color of chocolate with pink frosting and more pink in its middle. The mound on Ro's plate looked like it might have been the same thing. Her head was bent over her plate; he was facing her red hairband and the top of her short, dark hair.

"We've been set up," Ro commented to what was left of her food.

"Hmm." He tasted his cake. It was cherry-chocolate. He thought about excusing himself, but that felt uncomfortably like running away.

"I'm sorry you've been dragged into this, Ensign. Counselor Troi thought I should talk to you." He crossed his legs and started peeling excess frosting off the top of his cake. "I didn't think she'd enlist Guinan about it."

"What?" Ro looked up at him with wide-eye astonishment. "Counselor Troi thought that _you_ should talk to _me_? Why?"

"I, um . . . " he started. "When I was being held by the Cardassians, the Cardassian who questioned me had a daughter. She was about seven or eight. She came in once and Gul Madred stopped torturing me long enough to speak to her, promised her he'd read to her before she went to bed while I was just sitting there."

Ro's delicate features wrinkled with disgust. The light from the table they sat at accented the ridges between her eyes, casting little shadows there. "I guess I'm not surprised."

"It made me think of you." Ro looked away, embarrassed. After spending a week worrying over her own morbid curiosity of what the Cardassians had done to him, it hadn't occurred to her that Picard might have associated her with Cardassians the same way everyone else did. "I was appalled to see for myself what the Cardassians consider appropriate for a family setting."

"I guess I haven't thought much about it."

Her answer surprised him. "You haven't?"

"Why? I can't do anything about it."

"Well, I had thought that with your background-"

"Just because I grew up in a refugee camp doesn't mean I let it rule my whole life. I don't cower every time anyone mentions a Cardassian. And I don't care what they're doing on Bajor. And I'm tired of everyone thinking I do."

"I didn't say you did, Ensign." His pointed reference to her rank was an effective reminder that she was suddenly almost yelling him.

"I'm surprised you feel that way. After all, the Cardassians are finally leaving your home world after sixty years of occupation." Picard had no idea why she'd started talking about Bajor. He hadn't mentioned it, but he was perfectly willing to change the subject, since Ro herself had so quickly lead the conversation astray. He'd satisfied the conditions of Troi's suggestion concerning Ro by telling her about Gul Madred's daughter . . . and more so with his candid discussion with Beverly Crusher earlier that evening. "I would have expected you to be at least interested in what was happening on Bajor."

"Why? I've never been there," she challenged back to him. Ro had never been known for being shy when speaking to her senior officers.

"You haven't?"

"No."

Picard had the strong impression that Ro had been telling people this over and over again for years.

"At least a third of all Bajorans born in the last fifty years have never even seen Bajor. They're scattered in refugee camps all over the sector."

"The Bajoran government has announced a program to resettle the refugees."

"And if they stop fighting amongst themselves long enough to actually do something, where are they going to find the ships to do that with? And where do they think they're going to put all those people?"

"You know, for someone who professes not to care about what happens to Bajor, you seem to be awfully current about what's going on there now," Picard observed.

"Doesn't seem to be any way to get away from it," she said down to her plate.

"There doesn't seem to be any reason why you would want to."

Ro cast her eyes upward in exasperation and sat back in her chair. "Try ignorance, superstition, petty bickering over the scraps the Cardassians left behind."

"Is that the way you see your people, Ensign?"

"That's the way they are."

"From my understanding Bajoran culture has fostered millennia of philosophy, art, science and architecture." Picard had looked up Bajor's history when Ro had first come on board the ship and there had been much in it to interest the amateur archaeologist in him.

"And look what they're doing with it," Ro argued back at him. "The Cardassians have finally left Bajor, and now there are at least a dozen different factions fighting over what's left. When I was growing up, people in the refugee camps used to sing songs about how wonderful everything was going to be when Bajor was free, about how there was going to be this wonderful peace, and what everybody was going to do when . . . " Ro's cynical tirade stalled. She bowed her head, suddenly pensive.

"Ensign?"

Her eyes flicked up at him and then down. She touched the Bajoran earring on her left ear. Nearly every other Bajoran Picard had met wore their earring on the right ear, but Ro's had always worn hers on the left. He wondered why.

"When I was little," Ro began, her voice low, and halting with emotion, her head bowed. "My father used to sing those songs to me. We'd sing them together." Home. Family. Sunday dinner. The words to the songs that he had screamed, blind with pain, at Gul Madred came to Picard's thoughts. "And," Ro went on. "Then I had to watch the Cardassians break him." Ro, still not looking up at him, dabbed at her nose with her napkin. "When the rumor went around the ship that you'd been captured by Cardassians, I . . . just didn't want that to happen again."

Picard bowed his head, realizing the comparison she was making. They sat there, silent, looking down at the forgotten plates of picked over cake, until he caught her looking at him. She straightened, apparently tired of hiding from his gaze. "I guess, I just needed to say that. To somebody."

The captain sat silently across from her. He looked like he was going to say something, and then he didn't. Ro regretted making him uncomfortable, but she was glad she'd finally said it. Finally. As if she'd been procrastinating all week, working up the courage to tell him.

That was it, Ro realized. When Picard had suddenly been replaced there had been the very real possibility that she would never get the chance to say it to him. And then the rumors about him being captured by Cardassians had started . . . _I never got to tell my father that I forgave him for how he died. That I knew he still loved me. And that I still loved him._ Ro thought about those long discussions she'd had to sit through with the monks in the refugee camp, and those tedious self-analysis sessions at the Academy. _I guess that stuff works._ She had to admit that it did, even though she hated it. _Well, I am _not _going to tell Counselor Troi about this anyway._

"I just always wondered why they had to do it?" Picard looked up at her. "The Cardassians didn't ask my father any questions. None that they really wanted answered. They just tortured him."

"Control," Picard answered. "They're not really interested in information."

"Why?"

"They need it. They didn't have enough at some point in their lives. Or maybe they just learn to enjoy it." Picard looked directly at Ro, and she didn't flinch.

"At one point, after he'd questioned me into unconsciousness, Gul Madred told me that I could go, that he was finished with me," Picard said quietly, propping his own elbows up on the table, his chin resting against his folded hands. "So, I got up and started to leave. Just when I got to the door, he told me that he would have to continue with Doctor Crusher. I didn't have any way of knowing they didn't have her. But I had to turn around and go back. He just wanted to see me _choose_ to sit in that chair in front of him." Ro lowered her eyes, a faint aspiration, part of a quiet sob, escaping her. When he'd told Beverly Crusher about Madred's threat, she had touched had. Then she'd hugged him.

Ro swallowed, composing herself to speak.

"The Cardassians beat my father, and they used a pain stick on him. They laughed while they tortured him. He told them he'd do anything if they'd stop, offered them anything . . . . even me. They just laughed and told him he wasn't saying it right. When they sent me back to my mother, they gave me his earring, and they told me to remember."

Ro put her elbow on the table, her hand rubbing her neck, her fingers playing her earring. Picard watched touch it. Her father's earring? Or part of it? He knew that Bajoran earrings were passed on in families, that the decorations on them denoted some type of lineage, but he couldn't decipher the significance of the shape or any of the silver engravings on Ro's.

"What will you do now, Ensign?"

Ro put her arm down.

"I guess maybe I should take some time off," she answered, somber. "To visit Bajor."

The captain smiled. "You might have the chance sooner than you think. The Federation Council has accepted the Bajoran government's invitation to establish a presence in their system. The _Enterprise_ is likely to be one of the ships they send."

"To Bajor?"

He nodded. "In fact, Starfleet will be looking for officers for the new outpost there-"

"No!"

Picard stared back at her, genuinely surprised by her outburst. Ro felt acutely aware that in regards to transfers, she was completely at his mercy, and a casual suggestion about a tour of duty on her homeworld could too easily become reality. "I mean, I'm happy on the _Enterprise_, sir" she amended, horrified that her frank discussion could lead to her being relegated to an outpost on Bajor.

"Of course." He straightened his uniform. "I assume you'll still want leave."

"Just leave, sir," she affirmed, her eyes still wide with dread.

"Just leave, Ensign," he assured her, getting up from the table. "Good night." He started to leave, but she stopped him.

"Captain." He turned back, and she looked up at him from her chair. "I just wanted to say that I'm glad we talked," she told him awkwardly. Ro wasn't used to thanking people. Neither was Picard.

"So am I, Ensign."

***o* *o* *o* *o* *o* *o***

Picard walked down the corridor from Ten Forward to the turbolift. _Is Troi talking to Guinan about me now?_ he wondered. Maybe. He wouldn't inquire; it didn't matter. He got to the lift and after a brief pause the doors opened.

" . . . got to take aaaaall the tapes off the . . . " The little girl's voice wavered and stopped as he entered.

"Deck Five." he instructed to the computer. The lift moved on. The two other occupants did not resume their conversation and he didn't look at them. They were two little girls. He couldn't recall their names, but he saw them all the time. Their parents had quarters on Deck Five, where his were.

They were about seven or eight years old. He was sure of that. He knew that the little Vulcan girl had passed her Kahs-wan ritual less than a year ago, beyond which she was expected to behave as an adult. She did her best little girl's imitation of an adult whenever he saw her. But her initiation to Vulcan adulthood hadn't altered her relationship with her Neran friend. The two remained just as inseparable, a small, dainty Vulcan with very long black hair and her taller, slender, hairless blue-skinned friend.

Picard heard the Neran girl fidgeting, but her friend stayed still.

The lift stopped. The captain left first. He could hear their small footsteps behind him; a couple of whispers. He'd been mentally comparing these two to Mardred's daughter all week. When he thought about showing Madred's daughter how wrong her father was, he thought about these two. Now he was comparing them to Ro. _Hope_, he thought, _there's always hope._

He got to his quarters. Just before he entered the door he whirled about and caught the two in mid-whisper, the Vulcan girl saying something to the other. They both jumped. He smiled. T'Jee. That was the Vulcan girl's name. And the other one was . . . Loru Chaas.

He nodded to them and went into his cabin.

***o* *o* END *o* *o* **

**Note:** This story was written by me and first printed (under the name 'Anne Davenport') in 1994 under the title 'Progeny Of The Subjugators', in _Beyond Farpoint_ 4, a fanzine back in the hard-copy and snail-mail days of fan-fiction, before the internet really took off.

**Disclaimer:** All Trek characters and the universe belong to Paramount; I'm just playing in that sandbox.


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